Paladin's Guide to Bonding in Space
by Mikiri's Revenge
Summary: Pidge had tried to keep it a secret that she danced, but like any secret on an alien ship that had seven people, everyone found out. Upon discovery that she was not the only member of the crew with that secret, the Paladins decided to use dance to educate their Altean hosts on how humans conduct bonding exercises. (Also available on AO3 with pictures!)


It started simply. On days they didn't have training Pidge would disappear for an hour or two then reappear looking like she just showered. No one knew where she went or what she was doing and if asked, she would evade the question. All anyone knew was that it wasn't anything dangerous or particularly technological, even though she took her computer with her every time.

Hunk stumbled over her first. He had been looking for his tech buddy to help with possible upgrades to the Castle's defences. He'd explored about half of the Castle that was open to them before he found her; she had taken over a room with what looked like mirrors on one wall, and was stretching on the floor like she was getting ready to exercise. The room reminded Hunk of a dance studio, which, he supposed, was what she was using it for.

Pidge finally seemed to notice his entrance and stood up; she'd taken off her sweatshirt and was wearing the cami she had on underneath it, looking ready to practice, "Hunk, what are you doing here?"

"I was, just-well, you know. I wanted to upgrade some of the Castle defenses, and I couldn't find you, and I know it's your personal two hours, but Coran was acting really weird and-I just. Uh. Well, I wanted some company?" Hunk rambled poking his fingers together nervously.

Pidge crossed her arms defensively, "Hunk, I appreciate it, but I really want to do something by myself for a while. Can't it wait an hour?"

"Well, yeah, of course you can. But, I mean," Hunk leaned in eyes sparkling, but seeing Pidge's disapproving glance hurried to explain, "it looks like you're gonna dance and I was just wondering what type of dance you do? I was trained to do Hula like most kids in my family, but I also ended up learning breakdancing because it looked fun at the dance school. And, I, well, can I watch?" Hunk pleaded, hands pressed together in a begging pose.

Eventually, Pidge sighed but relented, uncrossing her arms, "Fine, I guess. Come in. But close the door, I don't want this going any farther than this room. Got it?"

Hunk hurriedly complied and sat on the floor next to the computer to offer his support by playing the music for her. Pidge remained standing and started doing what looked like basic ballet and warm ups. "My mom was really interested in our history, like where our family came from and stuff like that. When Matt was about five, she discovered that our family came from Scotland. So she looked it up and eventually found Matt a teacher who taught traditional Scottish Highland Dancing. When I turned five, she signed me up tool. And now that we're stuck out here it seemed like a way to connect to Matt and my mom again."

"That's really touching Pidge, maybe when you get the chance you can teach me some? And I can teach you hula! That way we can both connect with home for a bit?" Hunk asked, a certain level of excitement in his voice. He loved learning new forms of dance back on Earth, so why not here in space?

Pidge smiled, "How about you watch me actually dance first before you ask me about teaching you. Can you play the song Highland Fling, six steps, off the playlist? It should be right there. And don't touch anything else on my computer!"

"You got it buddy!" Hunk replied starting the song.

The sound of bagpipes filled the air; Pidge held in first position for eight counts, bowed for six, rose on the balls of her feet for the last two counts, and then she danced. From what Hunk could tell, highland dancing seemed very stiff and regimented, its movements repeated on each leg before moving to the next step. It seemed very intensive with the hopping on one foot, the movements with the free leg, the hands, the head motions. There was an almost military precision to the dance. Eventually Pidge ended the dance with a two turns before stepping to the side and bowing again as the music droned to a close. Hunk scrambled to paused the music, which had started to play the next song, and clapped enthusiastically.

"Wow, Pidge, that was amazing! The way you did the thing, and the turns and the-" Hunk demonstrated what he was talking about with his hands, imitating the sliding motions and shake movements and Pidge nodded along.

"Well, I've been dancing for ages. Matt and I were competitive in it before we both went to Garrison, so I've been dancing for about 10 years. In competitive highland dancing, I was what's called a 'premier dancer' which is the highest group. Most people my age who have been dancing and competing for a long time reach this level at about my age." Pidge explained, grabbing one of the water pouches she had stashed in the room and taking a sip. "That dance was one of the first we learn, but the extended version that I just did was the one upper level dancers do. The short version only has four steps."

"So a step typically has two parts one for each leg?" Hunk asked, he'd been wondering how the steps were split.

"Basically, but sometimes you end up doing the same movement four times alternating sides, like the first step, and that's the whole step." Pidge paused to take a sip of water while Hunk considered the new information.

"So is there multiple styles that you can compete in, or do all the highland dances look like that." Hunk asked, trying to figure out how highland dancing was structured.

"There's two styles. Well, technically five but we only ever really group them into two. There's highland dances, like the Fling, which are considered masculine dances. Then there are more feminine dances like the Lilt. The other three categories are the Hornpipe, the Jig, and choreography." Pidge explained and then sat down for a minute to stretch her legs. "Hand me my computer and I'll find one of the feminine ones so you can see the difference."

"Are they normally done in groups?"

"They can be, but only one type of dance is done with the dancers interacting; those are called reels. They're done in groups of four. They can get really messy if not everyone knows what they're doing. I've seen people collide during competitions, or get flung off stage by people doing it wrong. Here, I've found my favorite of the nationals, so when I'm ready just hit the play button ok?"

"You got it! I can totally do that. That was really cool, so I really want to see how the femenine dances look different." Hunk replied taking the computer back. The song title read Blue Bonnets Over the Border.

Pidge stood in first position again, but her hands were down like she was holding a skirt. She nodded and Hunk started the song. Once again bagpipes filled the room, Pidge waited eight counts before stepping and curtseying, then pulling the leg back to first and raising on the balls of her feet. As she danced Hunk could see the differences between this dance and the Fling; where the Fling was stiff and regimented, this dance flowed and moved like when he watched Lance do ballet. The dance still had the constant hopping with the beat that the Fling had but ballet did not, but there was far less arm movement than with the Fling, at least at first. When she started the middle steps he noticed an increase in arm movement and turning; he was getting dizzy from watching her dance, he couldn't imagine doing it. The dance ended with a her doing a turn, an entrechat, and then pointing her foot forward with her arms raised. Hunk once again paused the music and clapped.

"That was so different from the first one but I could see that they used a lot of the same types of steps. It reminded me more of Lance doing ballet than the first dance but it was so pretty and floaty." Hunk commented as Pidge grabbed the water pouch again and finished it.

"Yeah, nationals are floaty pretty dances, this one supposedly came from women trying to entice soldier boys on their way to war. So the history is kinda meh, but it's fun to do with technicality of it." Pidge replied dismissively, flopping on the floor to fall into stretches. "Hunk, why don't you go. You said you did Hula, right? Show me what you got big boy."

Hunk agreed and stood to warm up some himself, "Do you have any music I can use?"

"I've got the Lilo and Stitch soundtrack?" Pidge offered. "Sorry, I don't listen to that type of music much."

"Nah, that works bro. Just give me a minute to warm up. I didn't expect you to have much if you normally are dancing to bagpipes." Hunk replied doing his own warm ups after sliding off his vest.

"Yeah, yeah. Just tell me when you're ready." Pidge replied easily, doing butterfly stretches on the floor.

It took a few minutes but once Hunk was ready, he told her to start the song. He waited a few counts then raised to the balls of his feet, bent his knees forward and started to dance. The arm movements were similar to the ocean waves and the sun shining. His hips kept a simple beat in time with the music and interspersed with sharp jerks of his knees spreading apart and slow turns. He posed at the end of the song with a leg forward and his arms in front of him as he said the end of the song with them.

Pidge paused the music and applauded and grabbed a water pouch and handed it to him. "That's a lot different than what I do. It's a lot more fluid."

"Yeah, that song and dance were normally done by female dancers not male, but the principle is the same. My sisters used to dance to this song a lot and made me learn the dance too." Hunk explained stretching some. "I don't really feel like trying to get into breakdancing right now. I would need a lot more warming up and I'm just not feeling it right now."

"That's totally cool. Wanna learn some Highland then? We've got another half an hour before people start looking for us again." Pidge offered standing again.

"Yeah! How about starting with positions and movements. It looked a lot like ballet, but not quite the same." Hunk replied. For the next twenty minutes the pair went over the basics of highland dancing. The last ten minutes were spent stretching and cooling down as they chatted about ideas for what to work on next time.

"So, there's gonna be a next time? Like, for sure?" Hunk asked to make sure he was really invited to join her practice time.

"Totally, I still need to teach you pas de bas and high cuts and you need to teach me hula. Maybe later we can get to working on breakdancing."

"Sounds good to me buddy. Sounds good to me."

It took almost what they were counting as a space month before the pair were discovered. This time it was Lance, looking for someone to hang out with to escape helping Coran with cleaning the healing pods again. Lance had thought he'd looked everywhere for the pair until he heard music trickling faintly down a typically unused hallway, he followed the sound until he found a door.

"AH HA! I knew you guys were hiding from me!" Lance bust into the room before freezing in confusion. "What are you two doing?"

Pidge had been teaching Hunk steps of the Fling but both had stopped when Lance had barged in, causing Hunk to almost fall over from the abrupt stop and Pidge to have to dive out of the way of Hunk's flailing arms.

"Lance! Why don't you ever knock!" Pidge growled before crawling over to her computer to stop the music, not bagpipes, but some pop song that was in 4/4 time that worked just as well for the Fling.

"Hey, I'm not the one having secret rendezvous and hiding from other people in the Castle. You two are the ones being sneaky here." Lance sulked momentarily before entering the room and sliding up to Hunk.

"So what are you doing bro? Looks like you were practicing something. And woah! Are those mirrors? Is this a dance room? This is totally a dance room."

"Yeah, uh, well, uh. Piiiiiidge." Hunk turned to Pidge anxiously, not sure if he should explain to Lance or not.

Pidge sighed, "I've been sneaking in here to practice dancing. Hunk found me one day and joined in. We've been teaching each other dance styles until you came in and interrupted us. Happy?"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You two have been sneaking around to dance without me?" Lance turned to Hunk, "Without me bro? You know I love to dance! So why have you been sneaking?"

"Well, it's, it's…." Hunk flailed.

"I asked him to. It was a private thing for me at first but it's been fun teaching each other. We were going to tell you soon. Hunk said you would probably want to join, but I just wanted something other than just tech stuff for us to do together you know? As Keith or Allura would call it, 'bonding'," Pidge did the air quotes. "It's a good way to relieve stress and I just wanted to keep it to just us for a little while longer."

Lance frowned but let it go, "Fine. But now you need to show me what you can do and I'll show you how to properly enjoy ballet. Though that will be harder without the proper shoes."

"Lance, if you wanted to do stuff in toe shoes, as cool as it would be, no. They wreck your feet, and A) we can't have that in the middle of a war, and B), neither Hunk or I would be able to do it. Part of dance time is sharing and that wouldn't be fair." Pidge listed off the shortcomings of that plan on her fingers.

Lance pouted and crossed his arms, knowing he was thwarted "That's fair." There was a pause as the tech pair waited for Lance to continue, "Fine, I know Hunk does hula and breakdancing, but what do you do, Pidge?"

Pidge straightened herself up to her full height and said, "I was a competitive Scottish Highland dancer."

Lance looked impressed for a moment but then confused, "A what now?"

"A competitive Scottish- ugh." Pidge started to repeat before changing tactics, "Lance you've at least heard of Riverdance right?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Highland dancing is its Scottish cousin essentially. Except we use our arms. And turn out. Anyways, sit down and I'll show you. Hunk, do you want to see me do the Fling again and try it with me, or should I do a new dance?" Pidge explained to Lance before turning to Hunk to get his opinion.

"I want to see a new dance, I've only seen three and you said one of them doesn't really count." Hunk replied thoughtfully retreating to next to the computer and dragging Lance with him.

"No, 16 Pas de Bas doesn't really count. So new dance it is. Uhh, one sec." Pidge grabbed the computer and went scrolling through the music before handing it back to Hunk, "You know how this goes. And don't let Lance touch it." Pidge then went to stand closer to the back of the room than normal, she then held up a thumb to Hunk as a cue for the music.

Lance watched curiously as bagpipe music filled the room, Pidge stood for eight counts, bowed for four, took two steps diagonally back and did a circle with her arms. It was then immediately apparent why Pidge had started in the back of the room, the dance circled forward using brushing movements before bringing her back to the starting position then retracing it ,going the other way. The next section seemed focused on sideways movements with the same arm circles, when she suddenly leaped Lance jerked back slightly in surprise. He realized that the leap was part of the step when she did it again. She did one more step involving diagonal movements before clapping. After she clapped the music sped up and it looked like she was doing a completely different dance for what Lance assumed was two steps before ending with two back to back leaps and bowing.

Hunk paused the music and he and Lance applauded, Pidge came over and sat in front of them and stretched while she talked, "So, that was Highland dancing Lance. That dance specifically is called the Sean Triubhas; it was a dance done a long time ago after England invaded Scotland and banned plaid. The first part is trying to dance in trousers while after the clap is when the English were forced out and Scotsmen could wear kilts and dance properly again. That's why the parts look different, Hunk." Pidge explained anticipating Hunk's questions about the history of the dance.

"That was pretty cool, but it's so stiff! How do you function? You look like a robot!" Lance complained.

"The Highland dances are stiff, but when I took ballet to supplement it that felt even stiffer so I don't know why you're whining. You'd probably like the national dances more, they're flowier." Pidge replied before doing a split stretch and walking her hands forward until she could lean on her elbows. "Now Lance, it's your turn to demonstrate. What type of music do you want?"

Lance frowned thoughtfully, "Well, what type of music do you have?"

"I've got a lot of stuff; some classical from when Matt thought it would make him smarter, some pop, some jpop and kpop, a few musicals, whatever you want really." Pidge offered.

"Do you have music from Flames of Paris? It's a ballet. Obviously." Lance asked, shedding his jacket, socks, and shoes and he began warming up.

Pidge went through her computer music list for a minute before letting out a surprised noise, "I do infact have music from Flames of Paris. It must be Matt's. You want the variation piece right?"

"That's right. I'll tell you when to start, so sit back and watch my smooth moves." Lance replied as he continued to warm up. Apparently the choreography was quite strenuous from the amount of warm ups he was doing, he did a few pliés, a tendu combination, and some basic jump combinations before backing into the back right corner of the room. "Alright, please count down and start it, Pidge."

"Alright, 3, 2, 1, music starts now." Pidge pressed the play button. The music rolled slightly and Lance ran forward, leaping as the music crescendoed. He leaped once more before posing near the front of the room on the opposite side and doing a series of pirouttés when he seemed to be running out of momentum he leaped in the air and turned before landing on one knee dramatically. He reached out and posed dramatically, standing before stepping back towards the corner he came from, then doing a tour en l'aire before turning back to his audience and pausing for a second. He then did another piroutté combination, turned and did a tour jeté before doing an assemblé and went into a different piroutté combination. He then did a step sequence to reach the back left corner of the room, posing momentarily before doing a few steps and then launching into a kicking jump at an angle that made it look like one extended leg never moved during the jump. He landed on a knee, then paused and repeated the jump landing the same way before springing into a standing pose. He returned to fifth position then extended his leg back to do another short piroutté combination. He then did what Pidge would refer to as a sit spin in the air landing on his knee again he then shifted his weight to hit an ending pose as the music finished before standing and bowing.

Pidge and Hunk both burst into applause after Lance bowed, Pidge pausing the music from playing the next song. Lance, panting heavily asked, "So what do you guys think? Ballet seem stiff and boring to you now, Pidge? And can I have one of the water pouches? That took a whole lot more out of me than it used to."

"Well, yeah if you haven't been practicing for a couple months what do you expect? And, uh, here, water pouch for you." Pidge tossed Lance a pouch, Lance then flopped onto the floor to drink and do cool down stretches. "That was a lot different than what they had me doing when I was in ballet. I like yours a lot better. If all guys in ballet get to do that sort of thing it totally explains why Matt stayed in the supplemental lessons for so long."

"Bro, that was totally awesome!" Hunk paused and thought for a moment, "Wasn't that your competition piece from two years ago? I thought I'd seen it before. You used to do parts of it in the training rooms at the Garrison. And show me your competition videos on you phone."

Lance nodded while taking a sip of water, "Yeah bro, that's the one that took me to USAIBC. I worked hard on that one, the jumps were my main source of points so they had to be perfect. It feels really weird to do it in these pants." Lance rubbed his hands on his pants, "Normally I'd be wearing a leotard or my costume. Jeans make it harder to do no matter how flexible they are."

"I know what you mean bro. Hula might not be that intense and flippy but these pants don't help much either." Hunk agreed.

Pidge shrugged, "My shorts are short enough not to get in my way. Highland doesn't believe in movements above the knee much."

"Makes sense. You said that your costume was a kilt, right? No one would be able to see your feet if they were above your knee in a kilt," Hunk mused.

"Yup, that's why. My teacher would complain that I wore long shorts to practice, but I didn't like the short shorts the other girls wore, so I wore things Matt used to wear and she gave up."

"Lucky! My teacher made me wear almost the same thing as the girls. She said it would be close to my costume, and she was right, but man, leotards are tight and uncomfortable." Lance complained as he stretched out,and made uncomfortable face when he felt the burn, "I used to be able to go further that this. Am I losing my flexibility?"

"You haven't practiced or done flexibility stretches in ages, I'm not surprised if you had lost a little. Don't worry, it comes back." Hunk patted Lance on the arm.

"So, Lance, want to join dance practice time? You can teach us ballet next time, I've already used my half to do demonstrations since you busted in. That means it's Hunk's turn to teach us hula-if you want to." Pidge offered, standing to warm up again, Hunk following her lead.

"Sure! Hunk's never tried to teach me hula! Do we get to do it to fun music?" Lance asked springing to his feet.

Hunk pouted, "Kinda? Pidge doesn't have much good for hula so we're typically using Lilo and Stitch or the Moana soundtrack. Which, both are good, but kinda boring after a while."

Lance looked at them oddly, "Couldn't you guys program the computer to make more?"

"Well, sorta." Hunk did a kinda-sorta motion with his hand, "We could make a program that lets you compose music but we don't have instruments to base the sounds off of, and neither of us are composers, so even if we did make the program, we wouldn't get any new music."

"And none of the Altean music I've heard goes well either, so we're kinda stuck." Pidge added.

Lance frowned and bounced in place while thinking, "That sucks. Have you asked Allura or Coran?"

"No, they'd want to know why I want it and I don't want to explain. I've been getting music from Coran for 'cultural understanding purposes', but it all sounds like opera." Pidge explained.

Lance did a piroutté while thinking before replying, "That's weird. Maybe Alteans like opera music?"

"I dunno man, I dunno. I'm gonna start the hula playlist you set up and we can start teaching Lance; we can figure it out later." Hunk replied, fiddling with the computer to find the right music. Once it turned on, Hunk took charge, "Alright, Lance you're new so we're gonna start from the top. The first thing about hula is you need to stand like this- no not like that, like this- Lance, now you're messing with me."

Hunk's lesson continued for about forty minutes going over the basics of hula for Lance. Pidge focused on getting the basic stances down better since they were going over them anyways. At the end of Hunk's lesson Pidge took charge to do cool down stretches, Lance making faces every time they did one that he knew he used to be better at. As they left the room to shower Pidge mused, "Wouldn't it be interesting if Shiro and Keith danced too? That'd be our whole human crew."

"Keith, dance? He could never. I couldn't see him doing anything like that. He's way too into fighting to do dancing." Lance blew off the suggestion entirely.

"I dunno bro. Some of the moves he does in group training look like dance moves to me." Hunk replied thoughtfully, "Anyone want snacks after shower time? I could make cookies?"

"As long as you swear they're edible, I'll eat them bro."

"Me too." Pidge added as they left, keeping the conversation light as they went back to their daily routines.

Lance's addition to dance practices was both entertaining and frustrating for Pidge and Hunk. Once he focused, it was great and his addition of ballet to their dance lessons gave them something new to work on. But if Lance got bored or sidetracked, which happened several times a session, he would start doing ballet moves and either almost run someone over, or distract the others until no one knew what time it was, and they had to end the lessons or risk getting caught by the others. At this point being caught wasn't a big concern, but it was still rather peaceful to have time for just them.

During one of their training free days, but before they typically held dance practice, Lance had gone wandering the castle again. Pidge and Hunk were working on upgrades to the Pods, Keith and Shiro were on the training deck, Allura and the mice were sorting through distress beacons, and Coran was running maintenance on the castle's Teludav system after noticing how much the strain of making wormholes was on Allura. This left Lance alone to wander the castle by himself trying to find something to do. Eventually he decided he was going to watch whatever Keith and Shiro were doing in the training room because it had to be more entertaining than wandering by himself. Lance let himself into the control room; he had learned from a time he'd almost gotten beheaded from wandering onto the training floor proper while Keith was training, and walked to the viewport windows to see what they were doing.

Lance stared blankly at what he saw, because it definitely wasn't Keith's typical gladiator battles, nor was it the hand to hand practice he had seen them do before. What it looked like was Shiro teaching Keith how to do flips and strange kicks, not unlike some he did for ballet, but less elegant. It looked like aerial combat but with no actual contact between the pair. For a while they seemed to be doing the flip version of monkey see, monkey do but then Shiro did a super long sequence of jumps that had him twisting through the air in ways that Lance couldn't quite follow. Keith, in response, stared for several seconds and did a single backflip before both burst out laughing.

Lance contented himself with watching from the viewport as Shiro and Keith took a short break to grab water, Shiro seemingly explaining one of the moves he did to Keith who was nodding along. Shiro eventually put down his water to use his hands to explain the move better, poking Keith in each of the points used in order to do the sequence. It then looked like he directed Keith to try, which he did doing a roundhouse kick into a hands free 720º degree kick into a handless cartwheel and ending by using his hands to do a twist kick. Shiro said something that Lance figured was probably corrections, and then had Keith run it again. Lance had to admit it seemed smoother the second time.

Figuring he was safe enough to go into the training deck Lance made his way out of the control room and down to the training deck.

"-Keith, you're not ready to- Keith!" Lance walked into the room as Shiro was yelling at Keith who seemed to have just landed a very strange looking aerial move.

"Shiro, I knew I could do it. I could do both of the moves it incorporates fine, and I landed it fine!"

"I told you to stay away from the complicated tricks until I was sure your strength training would let you get enough air. You disobeyed me so no more tricks for today-" Shiro lectured, looking exasperated.

"Shiro!"

"-but you can do your other practice."

At this point Lance decided he should make himself known, "Sooooo, whatcha guys doing? This doesn't look like combat training."

Keith and Shiro exchanged a glance as Keith wandered closer from where he had been practicing. Keith eventually answered, using the hem of his shirt to wipe off sweat from his face, "Not all combat training has to be against the gladiator. This is just, an alternate way to practice."

Lance walked up to him and poked a finger to Keith's chest, "Nuh uh buddy. I was watching you do that, if you did that in actual combat you'd get shot before you finished. Try again with that explanation, cuz I'm not buying it."

Shiro came up to them and pushed Lance's arm down, "It can be used as strengthening training and it helps promote self-awareness. It could be used in combat even if that's not what we're using it for." Shiro lectured before turning to speak more directly to Lance, "What I'm teaching Keith is called tricking; we used to do it back at the Garrison after hours. Tricking is based in martial arts, gymnastics, and breakdancing. It's an…." Shiro paused thinking of the best way to phrase it, "underground sport. No rules, just how much can you impress the judges during meets. It's intense."

Lance stared at Shiro suspiciously, "You were part of an underground sports ring? _You?_ And you got _away_ with it? AT THE GARRISON?" Lance yelled.

Shiro shrugged noncommittally, "Well, yes. It helped that Dos Santos and Hedrick were in on it."

"WHAT? Why does no one tell me these things?"

Keith shrugged, "Lance, I found out about it by my third day there. It's not our fault you didn't know."

Lance froze and pointed a finger at Keith again, "You spent all your time in the gym, simulator, and library when you were there. None of those sound like secret clubs." Lance shook his head, "But I won't be distracted, what "other practice" would you be doing? Hmmmm?" Lance leaned in close and squinted at Keith suspiciously.

To Lance's surprise Keith blushed slightly and looked away; Shiro on the other hand started laughing. Lance looked from one to the other as Keith kept getting redder and redder and Shiro doubled over laughing. "I don't get it. What's so funny?"

Keith eventually had enough, "Shut UP Shiro. It's not funny."

Shiro visually tried to calm himself down, straightening most of the way back up, patting his chest with his human arm, he wiped tears from his eyes letting loose a chuckle occasionally. He clapped Lance on the shoulder, "You would have heard that part. Its nothing bad, Keith is just reminiscing about his time before the Garrison."

"What does practicing have to do with that?"

Shiro turned to Keith a shit-eating grin on his face, "Yeah, Keith, what does practice have to do with your past before Garrison?"

Keith turned and pointed a finger at Shiro, "You shut up. You already know. And you-" he turned to point at Lance, "don't need to know since it's not relevant. It's a thing I like to practice to relax and work on coordination." Shiro started snickering again, "Shut UP." Keith's voice cracked and Shiro lost it. Shiro laughed so hard he actually fell to the ground, Lance and Keith both stared at him, it was the hardest Lance had seen Shiro laugh since before the Kerberos mission.

They left Shiro laughing on the floor for a minute before the laughter started sounding hysterical. Lance and Keith kneeled down in near unison, each taking one of Shiro's shoulders. Lance finally asked, "Dude, Shiro, are you ok?"

"I'm-" Shiro tried to respond through the laughter, "I'm fine." He took several deep breaths giggling occasionally, "You know, sometimes a laugh-" there was a breathy giggle which sounded so strange coming from Shiro, "-gets away from you. Builds up-" more snickering, "-too much and you just can't-" attempted deep breaths "stop laughing." Shiro lost it again leaving Lance and Keith to stare at each other helplessly as Shiro just kept laughing.

After about five minutes Lance and Keith settled on the floor to wait out Shiro's laughing fit and Lance asked again, "Soooo, what's that thing you like to practice that makes Shiro laugh?"

Keith sighed and stared at Shiro, "I don't know why he thinks its funny but I practice routines from the group I was in before I came to Garrison."

"Wow Keith, way to be vague. What type of group?" Lance asked poking Keith in the leg.

"I- well- uh, I was in a group called Byeol-i Boibnida, or Seeing Stars in English. It, it was an international kpop band, I used it to raise money so I could apply to the Garrison. It took a while but I got enough, and then I quit the group, but I kept practicing in case I ended up going back." Keith looked away refusing to make eye contact as Shiro laughed on.

Lance looked at him curiously though, "Why didn't you go back after you were kicked out? It would have saved you from living in a shack in the desert for a year."

"At first, I was embarrassed. I worked so hard to get there and then I got kicked out. Then I found the carvings and figured out the date they were talking about." Keith rubbed the back of his neck, "If Shiro hadn't appeared when he did, I would have gone back. I just, wanted to be sure it wasn't about Shiro after that whole cover up."

Keith finally looked up and made eye contact with Lance, Lance hummed thoughtfully. "So, you auditioned and got accepted to be a celebrity? And then you quit? For the Garrison of all things?"

Keith looked wistful, lost in his memories, staring at Shiro's still laughing form, "I wanted to fly more than anything. Everything was to be able to fly. Since I was young that was everything. Performing felt like flying, but when the chance to actually fly versus just feeling like flying, there really was no competition." Keith sighed and looked back at Lance, "Besides, in Korea, the kpop groups aren't treated like they are in America. It was a lot of work for not that much money, but the feeling on stage was a lot like Voltron and I wasn't sure if I could give it up, but I wanted to fly for real. And I could only do that at Garrison."

"So, you're famous? And no one knows? No one at Garrison figured it out?" Lance asked, mind blown at the fact that Keith could hide being a celebrity.

"Well, no one noticed. But my hair's a different color, I'm using a different name, I'm speaking a different language, and kpop isn't that popular in America, so no one noticed. At least, no one came up to me. Shiro, you done laughing yet?" Keith leaned over to poke Shiro's hip.

Shiro took a few deep breaths, sounding calmer than his last attempts, "Yeah, yeah, I'm done now. Just, needed to get it all out. So Lance, now you know Keith's big secret. The only person we know who knows was the administration obviously, and a first year girl who asked me if he did autographs or if he was trying to play it cool."

"Why did she ask _you_?" Keith looked curious as Shiro sat up and made their seating arrangement a triangle.

"I was close enough as your mentor that she assumed I must know. It was a hell of a way to find out, you looked so confused when I asked you about it the next day." Shiro replied leaning his head on his human hand.

Keith thought for a minute, "Oh yeah, that was, well, awkward. I thought you'd actually read my file and found out that way. I had wondered why you were asking about it then." Keith tilted his head to the side and drew his knees into his chest protectively.

Lance looked suspicious, "Did you ever practice at the Garrison? You must have since you practice up here. So where did you practice that no one ever noticed?"

"The roof, no one ever went up there." Keith replied easily.

"I wonder if Pidge knows, she has a lot of kpop on her computer. I bet she just hasn't made the connection." Lance pounded his fist into his palm as if making a decision, "I should tell her."

Keith looked alarmed, "No, Lance, don't you dare-"

Lance stood and sprinted out of the room heading towards the dance room yelling, "Pidge! Pidge! You'll never guess what I found out! Piiiiiidge!"

Keith gave chase after a few seconds of staring at where Lance had been. Shiro decided to follow to mitigate the situation that would occur when Lance got caught. Thankfully training made it easy for Keith and Shiro to catch up to Lance as he dove into the practice room.

"Pidge, Pidge, Pidge! You would not believe what I just found out." Lance yelled leaping around the room as Keith and Shiro barged in after him.

"Lance what have I told you about just running in here, you could hurt someone!" Pidge yelled in response, Lance dove to lay in front of her computer and searching through the music library on Pidge's computer, as she kicked him lightly in the side, "Don't touch my stuff! Hunk, come get Lance!"

"I got him," Shiro replied coming over to pick Lance up, placing a soothing hand on Keith's arm as he passed. Shiro reached down and grabbed Lance around the waist and flung him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. As Lance left the ground he found the song he had been trying to play and hit it.

A kpop song came out of the speakers, starting with a guitar riff before the vocals kicked in. Keith froze in place resembling a statue as his eyes narrowed to a glare at Lance. Pidge just looked confused, "Lance what was so important about that song that you had to come running in here with Keith chasing you?"

Lance just had a taunting grin, "Hey Pidge, does any of this sound like anyone we know? Maybe someone on this ship, maybe? Just maybe someone like-"

"Shut up Lance! I knew I shouldn't have told you." Keith crossed his arms and looked away pouting. Since Shiro was holding Lance, Keith couldn't get to him easily. Damn Shiro for planning ahead.

Hunk, who had been practicing was now listening intently to the song, "You know, this kinda sounds like you Keith. Just in Korean, hey Keith? Do you speak Korean?"

Keith just sulked quietly, refusing to answer. Pidge decided to try and figure it out herself, "I have a dance video of this, maybe that will tell me whatever Lance wants to tell me. So Lance, shhh, I want to figure it out myself."

Pidge pulled up the dance video on her computer, Hunk kneeling next to her and Shiro sitting on her other side. Shiro swung Lance off his shoulder to sit next to him with a warning glare. Keith wandered behind them still sulking with his arms over his chest protectively since he couldn't interfere anymore. Pidge pressed play and the music started again, Hunk stared closely at the group of five teenage boys on the screen closely. Lance quietly flapped his hands at Shiro as he figured out which of the teens was Keith. It had taken a minute of watching it to get passed the fire truck red hair that was cut far shorter than Lance had ever seen on Keith, not that it was truly short but it was definitely not a mullet. Shiro just gently grabbed Lance's hands and pulled them out of the way. Eventually Hunk reached the same conclusion, "Hey Keith, you would have told us that you were in a Korean pop band wouldn't you? Because that looks like you, sounds like you, and ignoring the possibility of it being your twin that you also never mentioned, it must be you."

Keith just let out a frustrated noise in response, "Yes, fine, that was me. Can we turn it off now?"

Pidge paused the video staring at the figures before leaning really close to her computer before whirling to stare at Keith who had his face buried in his hands. She stood up and walked really close to him, making the tips of his ears turn pink as he peaked through his fingers at her. Pidge made a frustrated noise herself, "I can't believe that I missed that I was sharing close quarters with a member of Byeol-i Boibnida this whole time! Like seriously, how could I miss that? I saw half your music videos!"

Keith let out a noise like a deflating balloon in response.

"You're the one with red hair in this video right? You were so popular, but you were so focused on some goal you wouldn't explain during interviews. Your aura of mystery really drew people in, it was a shame when you left. Why did you leave?" Pidge inquired as she got closer and closer to Keith who just hunched further and further with each question.

Shiro finally let Lance go, Lance promptly bounded over to the pair grinning and wrapped an arm around Keith's shoulders, "Keith-y boy here is embarrassed to admit he's famous. He told me earlier he left because he wanted to fly, and the Garrison was the only place to do it. Riiiiight, Keith-y boy?"

Keith used one of his hands to bat at Lance to try to make him go away, "What do I have to make you forget this ever happened?"

Pidge smirked, "Well. First you'd have to teach me all of the choreography from all of my favorite songs and then maybe we'll let it die." She poked Keith trying to get him to look at her.

He finally looked her in the eyes and saw she was serious, he let out a deep sigh, "Fine, but then it gets forgotten ok? Everyone has to stop bringing it up."

Pidge smirked, "Fine, but you have to teach me every dance first, and practice with me."

"Ugh. Only if you don't bring up the being famous part. I'll dance, but no more famous references, ok?" Keith conceded seeing he would lose this battle so he might as well do it when he could still chose things.

"Deal!" Pidge stuck out her hand for a shake.

"Deal." Keith replied less enthusiastically shaking her hand.

Pidge drew back and clapped her hands, "Now. We know what Keith can do, so Shiro do you have any hidden talents?"

Shiro rubbed the back of his neck having had fun watching the drama go on without him, "Well, I do tricking and I can line dance."

"Tricking?"

"Line dancing!"

Shiro laughed as he answered the simultaneous reactions, "Tricking is like martial arts crossed with gymnastics and break dancing, Hunk, and yes, line dancing Pidge." Shiro grinned before doing a kip-up to stand.

Lance grinned, doing pirouttés to burn energy, "Guess what! This means that the whole team dances. We can totally use this as team building instead of the stupid exercises Allura makes us do."

Shiro frowned considering, "I don't think she'd let us, but I do think it would be more effective."

Hunk considered for a moment as he stood to join their circle, "Maybe she would let us if we could show her it would be more effective? After all, her exercises are based on Altean psychology instead of human. If we could just show her this is more effective she might let us do it."

Pidge paced for a minute, Keith's eyes following her path, "Maybe, maybe we could do like an exhibition and then teach her and Coran something? But something easy, or at least easier. Hey, Shiro?"

Shiro had a dubious expression on his face, "Yeah?"

"Do you think you could teach Allura and Coran a line dance?" Pidge asked leaning into Hunk as she thought.

"I guess I could. You all would have to know it too though, trying to teach newbies when you can't outnumber them when you're line dancing is like, impossible." Shiro replied considering the idea.

Pidge nodded, "Line dancing is probably easier than trying to teach them highland, hula, breakdancing, ballet, kpop, or tricking though. And so long as you pick an easy one we should have no problems following it. We're all trained dancers, so it really shouldn't be too much work." Pidge pushed her glasses up her nose while she thought about it.

"True," Shiro conceded, "Well, let's start working on the demonstration portion. Maybe one dance from each of our specialties before the line dance? I'm assuming that from that list you three do highland, hula, breakdancing, and ballet?"

"Yup!" Lance replied brightly, "I do ballet. Though, I typically do pointe and well, can't in space because no pointe shoes. I can also do the traditional male arrangements, but pointe was more fun to learn."

"I do hula and breakdancing, hula was traditional in my family." Hunk offered next.

"And I do highland, and so did Matt. Mom thought it would help us connect to our family's history." Pidge replied, pushing off of Hunk, "So let's get practicing. I think I can get you all through the Fling."

"I guess we're doing He Mele No Lilo, it's the only dance I know that you have the music for. I'm not feeling quite confident enough to choreograph a whole thing." Hunk sighed.

"Don't worry about it Hunk, it's a good dance. I don't know what I could teach you guys for a dance, I only ever really did solos and pairs. As the only guy in ballet for ages I got all the male solos. Maybe I can teach you all a solo, and we can block it so no one runs into each other?" Lance had stopped doing pirouttés by this point, he looked unsure about the idea suddenly.

"That should work so long as it's less complicated than the one you were doing earlier. I think only Shiro and Keith could do the jumps in that." Hunk replied, thinking of the only whole dance they had seen Lance do.

"Yeah, easier solo it is, I guess. I… don't think I know any. Damn." Lance frowned, crossing his arms and tapping his foot restlessly.

Shiro considered the problem, "Do you think you could get Pidge and Keith through one of your solos with you at least?"

Lance shifted his weight back and forth for a moment before replying, "I mean probably, but why those two specifically?"

"Because our styles are the most compatible with ballet." Pidge replied having figured out Shiro's reasoning.

"I think I could get you guys through the Nutcracker variation, if you have the music Pidge."

"I do, Matt did that solo too."

"Oh, good."

They all turned to look at Keith, who sighed, "I can teach you guys 'Are You Ready, it easy enough, well maybe not easy, but you all should be capable. Only difficulty is going to be dealing with the rotating lead."

Lance wandered over to practically collapse against Keith, "Wouldn't it be easier to teach one with one main lead?"

Keith gave Lance an unimpressed stare, "Totally, but that wasn't the type of group we were so all of the full group songs have rotating leads, it's part of being a group."

"We can do it," Shiro replied, breaking in before it devolved into an argument, "I can teach you all a very basic tricking pass, or maybe Hunk and I can coordinate a breakdance vs trick demonstration. That would cover everything right?"

Hunk counted off all the dances on his fingers silently, "Yeah, that would cover everything. We should probably start with the Fling and He Mele No Lilo, since the three of us have been working on those for a while and it won't take long to get you caught up."

Keith and Shiro traded a glance and shrugged, "Sounds good to me."

For the next two months on their days off, which Shiro was able to convince Allura to allow to happen more frequently, they worked on their recital. The biggest hold up was from Lance trying to explain the French ballet terms to Keith, who wasn't used to the French terms and would get confused at what Lance was yelling about. Keith's lessons were going ok, the rotating lead positions kept driving Lance nuts who was used to solos lasting far longer. Eventually they got all of the dances into presentable condition, they only had two left to perfect, the line dance and the tricking vs breakdance demonstration.

"So," Shiro said, wiping sweat off his brow, "We're down to the line dance and tricking vs breakdancing, let's split up, I'll take Keith, Hunk you can take Lance and Pidge. Keith and I will go back to the training room, let's come up with 4 segments of increasing difficulty and then meet up again and try them against each other."

Hunk gave a thumbs up and pulled the other two into a huddle, while Keith and Shiro left talking quietly. Keith bounced down the hall all the way to the training room, reminding Shiro of Lance with all the bouncing. When they finally reached the training room, Keith did an aerial out of sheer excitement, making Shiro laugh.

"What has you so excited about this whole thing?"

"Well," Keith spun around to face Shiro, "This means we're almost ready, and while teaching Lance is exhausting, performing is so exhilarating I don't even care. And if we impress Allura we can practice more, and dancing is just no pressure and its a nice outlet. It's like the only nonviolent outlet we have out here honestly, because have you seen some of the Altean entertainment? It's fucking dangerous."

"I know, I heard from Pidge even the learning programs will attack you. Lance is 80% sure the Castle is haunted, and no one can prove him wrong. So, I guess if dancing will keep you all out of trouble, I'm all for it." Shiro rubbed his hands together in anticipation, "So, we'll be using mostly your knowledge of tricking so I don't get too ahead of myself and give you something dangerous. So for the first combo maybe a gainer flash kick, missleg into a pop 720, J step into a corkscrew and end with a shuriken twist?"

Keith paused and thought about the combination for a few seconds, "I think it'll work, let me try it a few times?"

"Of course." Shiro gestured to the free space.

Keith took a few deep breaths, centering himself before taking off. He sent himself into the air to do the gainer flash kick, his legs extended landing on one foot, before switching immediately to the other taking a few running steps to build momentum before pushing himself in the air spinning several times before lashing out with a kick, he landed and immediately took off into a run that looped him back facing the way he came and going into a series of kicks, the first that caused him to essentially do a front flip but he stumbled leading into the second one. Keith walked it off shaking his head, "That shuriken twist at the end just doesn't work. If we want to replace it I say a swingthru 900, but I vote just leaving it off. I run out of momentum too fast after the corkscrew to do any more big air tricks."

Shiro hummed in response, thinking it through, "You have a point, and it might take up too much space that way. I forgot we have other people to worry about."

Keith did wrist circles as we wandered around, "Yeah, too much space and I'd rather not be accused of trying to kick Lance in the head."

"True. The rest of it looked pretty good, see if you can get more momentum before you start so you don't need as much between the gainer flash and pop 720. Actually, it might work better if you switch them. It would flow better, so it would be a straight up, a diagonal move, momentum into a corkscrew. Yeah, I think that'll work better. Try again?"

Keith just shook his head mentally listing out the corrections, "You got it."

The next time Keith tried the combo it went much better. After he landed, he rolled his shoulders before giving his assessment, "Yeah this works a lot better. The flow is there this time."

Shiro clapped his hands, "Ok, let me try it and then we can try it in unison for a while until we even out then we can get working on the next one."

After several runs together Shiro was finally happy enough with it to move on, but said they were taking a stretching break instead while he thought about the next pass. Keith gratefully flopped to the floor and immediately went into split stretches, massaging his thighs trying to loosen the tightness near his knees. Shiro did arm stretches while he slowly walked through trick movements trying to figure it out before he put any momentum into it. Once Shiro was pleased with his next idea he grabbed them water pouches and sat next to Keith while they took a break.

Keith eventually moved to butterfly stretch to make it some easier to drink out of his pouch, mumbling around his straw he asked, "I wonder how things are going with Hunk?"

Things with Hunk were not going well, Lance never wanted to flex his feet and Pidge didn't understand why your knees were supposed to be bent, but Hunk was getting them there slowly but surely. He watched the pair collide again and sighed, Shiro was probably having the better time. Pidge wasn't used to having to watch for people that much and Lance kept putting too much power into certain moves and propelling himself completely out of position.

"Guys, I said Uprock, freeze, freeze, drop, windmill, not….whatever it was you just did. Lance, I know you like to improvise when you forget but you keep running into Pidge. Pidge, a little more confidence goes a long way, remember momentum is life." Hunk said trying to give them simple corrections. He knew this didn't have to be perfect, but if they were already running into each other, adding Shiro and Keith's bit would be impossible.

Lance looked like he was going to argue for a second, but a glare from Pidge made him revise that idea. After kicking her in the shoulder for the third time it was probably best to not poke at her, "Fine. I'm used to improvising if I forget because no one knows I'm wrong, but I'll try and remember the choreography better. Its just, body isolation and freezes feel so weird. Windmills are a lot of fun though."

"You would think that after your ballet solo. Windmills are just that motion without jumps, and they're big and flashy." Pidge grouched in reply, she had been having more problems with the breakdancing moves than Lance had been. She wasn't used to the floor aspects, or the idea of balancing on her hands and shoulders and it made her more tentative about the whole thing.

Hunk sighed, "Let's take a break, go through the choreography again and then run it some more. If you can get this section done we'll be halfway done, and once we finish then it's just integration with Keith and Shiro."

Pidge and Lance both righted themselves on the floor and started stretching. Lance eventually crawled over to where they left their supplies and grabbed water pouches and handed them out. Hunk sat down to stretch as well and talk about what might be tripping them up, "So, is there anything I can do that will help you get the choreography down? Explain things again, be more hands on, anything?"

Pidge waved a hand dismissively sipping on her water, "Nah, the movements are just really different than what I'm use to. My brain knows what it should be doing but my muscle memory says no. It'll just take more practice."

Lance groaned massaging his calf with one hand, holding his water pouch in the other, "I just need you to go through it more. I know I can do it, but I get distracted and then I lose where I'm supposed to be and then I end up kicking Pidge. Sorry Pidge."

Pidge kicked Lance in the leg a few times relatively gently, "There, now I've kicked you the same number of times you kicked me." Pidge finished her water pouch and stood up, "Now Hunk, can you run through it with me again?"

Hunk beamed and stood up, "Of course." He turned to look down at Lance, "You ready bro?"

Lance took one last long sip of his water, "Yeah, lemme get the trash out of the way and I'm good to go!" He grabbed Pidge's empty water pouch and then Hunk's when he was done and ran them over to the side of the room before running back. "Alright, I'm ready to go!"

Hunk looked at Pidge and then Lance, judging for himself their readiness before taking a deep breath, "Ok, I'm going to start from the top, if I lose you, stop me, but otherwise, follow along. And 5, 6, 7, 8."

Another two weeks of practicing later had both halves of the routine in okay enough condition to meet Hunk and Shiro's approval. So for the first time, they were going to show each other their halves of the choreography.

Shiro clapped his hands getting everyone's attention, he sent a sharp glare at Keith and Lance who had been elbowing each other in the side. "Ok, now that I have your attention," that was most definitely directed at Lance and Keith, "We're gonna run this once, with the music, no prep and see how it goes. After that we'll work on transitions and spacing, so use your better judgement, and try not to hit each other."

Shiro started the music and went to stand by Keith. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk did a quiet countdown before starting. The first section seemed like a lot of body isolation before dropping down onto their hands and doing a sixstep before pausing long enough to indicate it was Keith and Shiro's turn. Keith and Shiro end up doing mirrored J-step to get enough momentum, carefully avoiding the other three on the floor, before going into the tricking pass starting with the pop 720. Shiro had to make a couple midpass adjustments to avoid hitting Lance, and then Keith who had to make similar adjustments that lead to them being almost on top of each other during the corkscrew. Keith stared at Shiro after landing, a wild look in his eyes after their near collision.

Pidge, Lance, and Hunk started back up but Lance was a little distracted after almost being stepped on, which led to him nearly running into Hunk and managing to kick Pidge in the shoulder during the windmill again. Pidge glared for the entire time Keith and Shiro were going and Lance had the decency to look sheepish.

From there the next section was a train wreck, Lance ran into Keith leaving both of them on the floor and Pidge tripped over them and ended up on top of them, having been more focused on her footwork than her surroundings. Shiro eventually called it to a halt and went to pause the music. After the music ended he took a deep breath and looked down at the pile of teens on the floor, "I said not to hit each other."

Pidge, flat on her back on top of the pile snarked back, "Failed step one. We totally failed step one."

Lance squirmed from under her, his voice muffled do to the fact his face was buried in Keith's side "Yeah we did! And it's Keith's fault for not moving out of my way!"

"My fault? I'm not supposed to move during your section, you're supposed to being paying enough attention to not hit me! Like Shiro and I did during our first section!" Keith replied, angrily trying to get his arms out from under the pile to shove the other two off.

Hunk came over and picked up Pidge from the top of the pile setting her down a few feet away, cutting off any reply Lance could give, "That went about how I expected it to. Lance, Keith is right, but Keith for this round, I think it would have been fine if you moved." Hunk looked down at Pidge who was sitting on the floor, "You ok? I think you got a little too lost in your head during that last bit which is why you tripped on those two."

Pidge nodded staring as Keith finally got his arms free and shoved Lance completely off him, "Yeah, I still get parts of that section backwards, so I was trying to focus more and well. That happened."

Hunk stared at the squabbling pair that were still sitting on the floor, "This is what I thought would happen."

Shiro wandered over to the Hunk and Pidge, "I mean I also expected this to happen, but I figured Keith would have been fine. He's mentioned this sort of thing happening before with his old group."

Pidge smirked, "He was fine up until Lance blamed him. Honestly, I think he was pretty comfy about the whole thing, and then Lance opened his mouth and they reverted to this. I wish Lance would let the whole rivalry thing die, I'm pretty sure Keith would."

Shiro nodded, "Keith has no idea what Lance is going on about with the rivalry thing, but until Lance drops it Keith's just going to go with it because he's not willing to lose." Shiro sighed and rubbed his arm where the prosthetic and flesh met, "Well, I'm going to grab Keith and we can work on placement for freezes between sections so we don't collide next run through."

Shiro picked up Keith from his position on the floor and wandered over to their starting position and set Keith down. Keith huffed crossing his arms and looking away, after a moment he let out a deep sigh and stood taking their starting position, eyes focusing on a point past the others on the wall. Shiro sighed and directed his attention to Hunk who had started organising the others into their starting positions.

Hunk clapped his hands, "Right so now that we know that that didn't work let's start making adjustments. Lance I need you to end this section about two steps back and Pidge you need to end up diagonally forward right so we can keep clear paths for Shiro and Keith. So, let's try this section and see. 5, 6, 5, 6, 7, 8." Hunk finished the count down and all three of them started moving in unison again, Pidge and Lance both had looks of intense focus as they tried to shift their end positions.

The three hit their end poses and Hunk looked around from his spot on the floor, "You guys have enough room now?"

Shiro took a critical look at the amount of space open between the other three, "Should be, but you cannot be any closer because if you get closer we'll have to go over you, and that could be more dangerous than necessary. Alright, Keith, let's loop around the outer edge and come back center during the pass. Head diagonally forward some during the pass so we don't end up as close this time, I'll head back further. Ready?" Keith nodded fractionally, his mind already whirring over the corrections. Shiro did the countdown and the two sped off, Keith looping in front of Pidge then back through the gap between her and Hunk, Keith spun once near Hunk to orientate himself to the proper angle and launched into the tricking pass, now a half trick behind Shiro.

Shiro looked over at Keith an eyebrow raised, "What did you do? You were late."

"I did an extra spin near Hunk before starting the pass. It helped orientate me before the pass started." Keith explained.

Shiro hummed thoughtfully, "Show me." he looked down at the trio on the floor, "You guys good to hold position for another couple minutes?"

"Yeah, yeah, but don't take too long." Pidge grumbled back at him, shifting her weight some to rest on her hands more comfortably. Lance rocked back and forth on his hands shaking them out before nodding his readiness. Hunk shrugged once and also nodded.

Shiro nodded at Keith who had gotten back into starting position. Shiro watched as Keith took off, looping around Pidge and then doing a spin near Hunk. Shiro could see how Keith was using it for orientation, the space between Hunk and Pidge was smaller and at a sharper angle than the space between Hunk and Lance making it harder for Keith to reach the proper angle to not collide with where Shiro would be. Keith landed the pass and looked over at Shiro for approval.

Shiro nodded, "That works for dealing with the spacing issue. Next time we run it through I'll do it to so we're back to mirroring. Good work around." Shiro smiled and patted Keith's shoulder.

"Are you guys done yet with whatever you're sorting out?" Lance whined, shifting around.

"Yes, we're done. You guys can relax, thanks for holding while we sorted that out." Shiro watched as Lance and Pidge flopped onto their backs taking the weight of their hands, whining at each other.

Hunk lowered himself and sat up doing wrist stretches, "You guys wanna take five and do these two parts again until its natural?"

Lance groaned but sat up, "Fine, I guess. I'm not used to being on my hands this much. Hunk, why does your type of dance make me use my arms this much."

Hunk gave Lance a dry look, "Maybe because they make up half of your limbs and break dancing is a full body type of dance?"

Lance just stuck out his tongue at his longtime friend, making Hunk laugh. Shiro had wandered over to the collection of water pouches and was handing the out to the rest of the team and getting murmurs of thanks in response. Keith wandered over and flopped next to Pidge, quietly enquiring about details about the Fling that Pidge was teaching them at other times. Shiro let himself sit as well, settling down between Hunk and Lance who had devolved into making faces at each other. The break passed about as peacefully as ever and then the five of them were back on their feet in starting positions to run it again.

Shiro stood by the computer to start the music, "Now remember, no running into each other this time. And, go!" Shiro started the music and slid back into his starting position near Keith as the other three started their section.

This time it was much smoother, with Lance and Pidge focusing more on presentation than their feet. They managed to get into the proper positions to give Keith and Shiro enough space for their section with only a little blatantly obvious space checking and adjustment.

As they froze Keith and Shiro took off, Shiro nearly forgetting the newly added turn, but ending close enough to in unison. When the other three started again things seemed to be going well, Lance even managing to not kick Pidge during the windmills. However, their spacing made it very difficult to work around and resulted in Keith and Shiro colliding in midair. Shiro slammed into the ground first and Keith used the rest of his momentum to roll out of the way, groaning as he skidded to a stop in a not quite natural position.

"Holy quiznack! Are you guys ok?" Lance rushed out of his freeze position to go check on the pair, Pidge and Hunk following a second later. Lance checked Keith first as Pidge checked on Shiro. Lance hissed at the red roughness of Keith's arms, the floor was smooth but that still didn't stop friction burns from that much momentum. Lance leaned over close to Keith's face, "Hey mullet, you with us?"

Keith groaned and sat up, Lance helping him by tugging gently, "Did anyone get the name of that truck?"

"Yeah, its name is Shiro."

Keith snorted in laughter and then winced in pain, "Let's never do that again." Hunk made an agreeing noise and handed Lance a water pouch to give to Keith before giving the other to Pidge for Shiro. Shiro was lying with his head in Pidge's lap as she talked him through breathing exercises. Eventually Pidge managed to get Shiro mostly upright and leaning against Hunk, and Lance shuffled Keith over to lean on Hunk's other side.

"I vote no more practice for a couple days, let's do something else. Like costumes!" Lance suggested, taking in Shiro's shallow breathing and Keith's ripped up shoulders. Shiro gave a vague thumbs up and Keith huffed in agreement. Lance beamed, "Alright! We got a plan."

The group sat on the floor for a bit longer before shuffling along to drop the two injured paladins in their rooms for the rest of the day, with Pidge under Keith's arm, Lance under Shiro's and Hunk supporting from the center. They slowly trekked to Shiro's room and dropped him off, Lance deciding to stay in case Shiro was hiding being more injured than just having the air knocked out of him.

Hunk stared at Keith as they exited Shiro's room, "You know what, this will go faster if I carry you. Don't think I can't see you trying to hide that limp."

Keith tried to wave it off, "I'm fine, my room's not that far." He shifted his weight off of Pidge to try and walk on his own, but couldn't hold back the wince when his ankle twinged. Pidge rolled her eyes and jabbed Keith in the side, causing him to jump and then fall over.

Pidge leaned over Keith, "Stop walking on it if it hurts moron. Take him away Hunk!"

Hunk frowned as he picked Keith up princess style, "You didn't have to make him jump, I was going to grab him anyway." Keith pouted and squirmed in Hunk's grip, unhappy about being picked up. Hunk gave Keith a shake, "Stop squirming, or I'll drop you, and I don't wanna drop you."

"Yeah," Pidge piped up from next to them, "do you really want to meet the floor for the fourth time today?"

Keith huffed but stilled in Hunk's grip, "No, three times was enough, thanks."

Hunk adjusted Keith slightly and turned to Pidge, "Can you go to the infirmary and grab one of the tiny speed healers?"

"One of the micropods? You got it. You get Sir Bad Plans here back to his room." Pidge stuck her tongue out at Keith and then booked it down the hall to the lift.

Hunk smiled down at Keith, "You and me buddy, now let's get you back to your room." Hunk hitched Keith up and started down the hall to Keith's room.

Keith rested his head against Hunk's shoulder and grumbled, "I could have made it myself."

"Of course you could." Hunk agreed genially, "Doesn't mean you should, or that you have to. Besides, I don't mind, you weigh less than a bag of flour, I swear. You need to eat more dude."

"I weigh enough, I'm all muscle." Keith whined into Hunk's shoulder.

"Yeah, muscle and bone. Did you eat when you were living in the desert or did you somehow manage to find the secret to photosynthesis?" Hunk asked jokingly, but he really did want to know the answer since he could feel every one of Keith's ribs.

"I ate. It all came out of a can or a powder, but I ate." Keith mumbled.

"Not enough. After next supply run I'm feeding you more. All of you. Lance is still in the middle of a growth spurt, Pidge should be starting one soon, you don't seem to be growing but you probably should be, meaning all of you need to eat more. And Shiro, Shiro deserves good food after the Galra." Hunk explained, choking up a little at the end.

They had finally reached Keith's room, and he opened the door. Hunk walked over and set Keith on his bed, once he was settled Keith asked, "Is that why you've been spending so much time in the kitchen?"

Hunk made a kinda-sorta motion with his hand, "It started as something to sooth my anxiety, because even though the ingredients and tools are different the idea is still the same. Fiddling with tech, while fun and very interesting, is very dangerous. I like to know what all of the parts do and how they work before I make things, but a lot of Altean technology just doesn't work like that, it's a crystal with buttons that do things. It's just not the same."

Hunk sighed and sat on the edge of Keith's bed, "Then I noticed that everyone just wasn't eating enough. Coran's food isn't palatable to humans, and green goo both tastes bad and gets boring to eat all the time. So I decided to put my desire to bake and cook to good use and try to make sure everyone eats enough. But, working with alien ingredients is hard and everything is written in Altean, and no one knows how to read it yet, so I'm just a little frustrated."

Keith sat up and awkwardly tried to wrap his arms around Hunk, mimicking the hugs he got from Hunk as best he could manage. Hunk let out a sniff and turned so he could hug Keith better, Keith blinked at the shift but decided it was helping apparently, so whatever.

After a few minutes Keith's door opened, Pidge wandering in with micropod in hand. "Well, you two have been bonding apparently, but now it's time to fix Keith." Pidge watched as the pair unwound, Keith wincing as the scrapes on his upper arms were brushed past.

Pidge fiddled with the micropod to start it up before holding out a hand and staring at Keith, "C'mon Sir Bad Plans, let's fix you up. Starting with the friction burns, they'll take the least time." Keith finally understood and put his arm in her hand and she attached the micropod to his upper arm. The micropod made a whirring noise, and then dinged as it detected the injury. It immediately cooled, causing Keith to flinch and stare at the small machine.

"This feels weird."

"Get used to it."

"Now I know why the big ones knock you out, this _itches_. Is it done yet?"

"No Keith. Anyways, while it's working, any ideas for what to look for for costumes?" Pidge asked trying to distract Keith.

Keith pondered the idea for a few moments before replying, "Well, if we pick well we could probably use the same costumes for my segment and the combined demo, and maybe the same costumes for the ballet and highland segments. Hula deserves its own and maybe, our normal clothes for the line dance? So four costumes each, if we can find anything."

Hunk, who had been nodding along with Keith's list, added, "That's going to be the hard part. But if all else fails, we have proven we can dance in pretty much our normal outfits anyways."

"True," Pidge replied as the micropod dinged again. She detached it from Keith's arm and switched it to the other and it started up again. Once it dinged to initialize she continued, "but costumes make it feel more important. Like we're doing something special. But if we can't find anything we can just use the replicator and decorate our new practice outfits."

Keith went to scratch his newly healed arm, but Pidge grabbed his hand to stop him, "So we would be making them from scratch at that point?" Keith pondered.

"Right. If we end up doing that I'm only going to do a little bit of decorating. Mix the colors around a bit. And make sure my shorts are flexible enough for the ballet part because I have no idea how Lance does it in jeans." Pidge replied.

Hunk inspected the micropod since it was on the arm closest to him and it was the first time he had seen it in use, his fingers itching to fiddle with it, "I think I saw a storage area when I was exploring with Lance when we first ended up here."

Pidge smacked Hunk's hand with her free one, "No touching the micropod. You can take it apart when we don't need it."

"But-"

"No!"

Hunk sulked a bit as the pod dinged again and Pidge moved it to Keith's ankle, or tried to. Hunk ended up with Keith's leg in his lap as Pidge attached the micropod. The pod took longer as it mapped out the injury, and when it finally dinged to initialize Keith flinched and curled in on himself and let out a pained growl.

Hunk pulled Keith's curled form in for a hug, "So we have now learned that big injuries apparently hurt when they heal and Keith can make cat noises."

Keith's body shivered against him and it took Hunk a moment to realize the smaller boy was laughing. Pidge smirked and sing songed, "Kitty Keith, kitty Keith, always lands on his feet. Except not this time."

"Quiznack you!"

"I don't think you're using that term correctly." Hunk broke in and all three of them laughed, the distraction from the pain complete. The next hour it took for the pod to finish was spent bouncing costuming ideas and going over various choreography sections.

When the pod finally dinged to indicate it was done, Keith let out a sigh of relief and flopped back on his bed, "I'm so glad it's done. It felt so prickly, like my leg was waking up and going to sleep at the same time."

Hunk winced, "That sounds uncomfortable. I think I need to go start dinner, or we'll end up with Coran's cooking again."

Pidge made a face as she removed the micropod, "Lets... never do that again. If I ever see Coran's cooking again it will be too soon."

"Agreed."

Pidge took the pod and made her way to the door, Hunk standing to follow her as he carefully put Keith's leg on his bed, Pidge turned and gave Keith a searching stare, "I'm going to go check on Lance and Shiro, and put the micropod back. You are going to take a break until dinner is ready."

Keith stuck out his tongue out at the pair, but settled into his bed to do just that. According to Lance the next day, Keith had fallen asleep and no one had the heart to wake him up, even if he probably could have really used some dinner.

It wasn't until about four days later that all of the Paladins had the free time to go looking for costumes. Lance had apparently been scouting for clothing storage areas since they had come to space, and seemed to have finally hit the jackpot of random storage spaces.

"Hurry up! You guys are so slow," Lance complained standing at an intersection ahead of the rest of the group.

"Slow down Lance. It can't be that far, and we have the whole day off."

"But Shirooo-"

"Hey Lance, when you found it did you actually look at the type of clothes? Like would they have anything that fit me?" Hunk asked deciding to divert the conversation instead of letting it spiral.

"What? Oh, yeah buddy. I'm pretty sure I saw some stuff that should fit you." Lance replied, darting down the next hallway when the other Paladins reached the intersection. "C'mon, hurry up!"

Lance finally came to a stop a fair ways down the hall in front of a door, and bounced in place as he waited for the rest to catch up. Once the group had collected in front of the door, Lance, with significant drama, pressed the button to open the door. Shiro entered first with the rest trooping in behind. The room was about the same size as the practice room and full of boxes and hanging racks.

Keith poked around the room, judging its contents appraisingly, "You know we can't use like any of the things hanging right? They either have too many parts, or too many layers, or are just unsuited for any type of dance we're showing off."

Lance frowned as he took in the place as well with a far more critical eye, "I guess you're right, don't get a big head about it! But maybe there will be stuff in the boxes."

"It won't hurt to check, but yeah most of this is too formal." Shiro agreed leaving his inspection of the racks to start on the boxes. An hour of rifling through the boxes resulted in a lot of laughter and jokes, but very little practical outfits they could use.

Hunk leaned back from his box, a red cape wrapped around his shoulders, a silver ribbon (scarf?) wrapped around his normal headband, "Well, I think this counts as good bonding and a miserable failure for achieving our directive. I'm ready for a snack and the back up plan."

Lance groaned into his box, a strange glittering net of jewels on his head that they were all pretty sure weren't supposed to be worn on your head but no one knew where else to put them, "Sorry guys, I thought this was a little more practical, guess we found the formal wear though." Lance fiddled with the large, sheer bell sleeves of the bolero type jacket he had found, "But at least we look pretty!"

Keith rested his cheek against the box he had been going through, his hair full of odd decorations and ribbons that made it look like he had flower covered antlers on, "We look pretty he says, pretty strange. You guys shoved enough things in my hair I'm not sure what's my hair and what's not."

"Seconded." Pidge grumbled her hair slicked into braids full of glittering strands of jewels and braided metal and coin-like bangles. She eyed a knee length dress of very soft flowy material that had _pockets,_ and shoved in the pile of clothes they were actually taking back to their rooms.

Shiro had managed to put on a strange crop top over his undershirt, to which Lance snickered at every time he looked over at Shiro. It had multiple layers and frills cut in strange patterns with interconnecting beaded strands. No one was sure how he got it on, and by the looks of it no one could figure out how to get it off. Shiro fiddled with one of the ruffles, "Well, how about we take what we have found back to our rooms and go get started with the replicator and making some new, more uniform and practical practice clothes."

"I can't wait. That means I can take this stuff out of my hair, right?" Keith said, pulling himself up from the floor and grabbing his small pile of shirts and a long but thin bomber style jacket that reached about mid-thigh.

"Hells yeah, let's go. I think I need a shower too, to get all the dust off. Ten thousand years worth of dust is a lot." Pidge grabbed her pile, including her new dress, and pulled Keith out the door and back toward the paladin quarters.

"So I believe that's a shower, snack, and then replicator plan that Pidge just executed. I vote we join it." Shiro said shifting to stand as well, grabbing his pile of shirts and sweaters from the floor. He offered a hand to help pull Hunk up, and then Lance. They also grabbed their clothes and left the room, Lance chattering the whole time about Altean fashions that they had found in the storage room.

It took almost an hour for them all to regroup in the dining area for a snack. Hunk brought out a tray of ramekins full of purple seeming goo and put it in the center of the table, "Dig in! It tastes like if rice pudding and chocolate ice cream had a child."

Keith was the most adventurous eater of the group and pulled a ramekin in front of him and took a bite. He made a considering face while he chewed before his face lit up and he shoved another bite in his mouth, "I will eat all of this if none of the rest of you will."

Lance took that as a challenge and grabbed a ramekin of his own and shoveled a bit into his own mouth, he repeated the same facial journey as Keith before turning to Hunk, "Hunk, my man, my buddy, this is my new favorite space food and we should have it all the time."

Hunk blushed, but was pleased by the compliments. Seeing as the dish was both Keith and Lance approved, Pidge and Shiro claimed their own ramekins and dug in.

"So," Lance started mouth full of food, "since that was a bust what are we doing for replication costumes?"

"I was thinking of black tops and shorts with accents in our paladin colors made out of a sports fabric, or like, the underarmour of our flight suits." Shiro replied before starting in on his own bowl of the treat.

Pidge thought about it while she chewed, "Simple, keeps with our themes, useable for other purposes, and stretchy enough to dance in. Sounds good."

"Do we get to pick our accents?"

"Within reason, Lance. Turning the whole thing blue is not an accent."

"You're no fun Shiro. Oi! Mullet, eat your own!" Keith, who had been using Lance's distraction to snitch a bite of Lance's food, pouted at being caught and sulked at his empty bowl.

"I'll get you more later Keith. I'm glad you like it." Hunk smiled widely from over his own bowl.

"I'm done too, so, Kitty-Keith, you ready to go help me fiddle with the replicator?" Pidge asked bouncing out of her chair and towards the door.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming. And I'm not a cat."

The door closed behind them leaving Lance, Hunk, and Shiro at the table. Shiro swallowed a spoonful of goo before saying, "Seems like we're just being left behind today."

"Seems like," Hunk agreed, before eating another bite of food, "Might be for the best. Pidge knows the replicator better than I do."

"But Hunk, you made like my whole wardrobe at the moment with it." Lance said gesturing with his spoon.

"Well yeah, simple replication is easy. Modifications past sizing or using some of the inbuilt pallets are not my specialty." Hunk explained, "Those are more Pidge's field. I know she's been using them for sanitary products."

"Ohhhh, that explains why she's not having problems at least. Alright, I'm done. You guys ready?" Lance asked pushing back from the table. Shiro shoved the last bit of his into his mouth and stood as well.

Hunk smiled at the empty bowls and started stacking them back on the tray, "I'm going to go put these in the washer and I'll catch up to you ok?"

Shiro gave him an ok sign and grabbed Lance before heading to the replicator. Hunk hurriedly took the tray back to the kitchen and put the ramekins in the washer, and went to catch up with the rest. By the time he had gotten there Pidge and Keith's outfits were done and they were doing the last tweaks to Lance's before its was printed.

Hunk snuck up behind Lance and reached towards the console to press a button, but had his hand grabbed by Lance, "No touchy. It's perfect and I love you bro, but no touchy."

Hunk pouted, causing Keith to snicker into his hand. So Hunk turned and pouted at Keith who held up his hands in surrender before grabbing his clothes and darting out the door, "I'm gonna go practice for a bit, see you later."

"I think Keith hit his 'time with people' limit." Hunk observed, staring at the closed door.

"Yeah, probably best to leave him be for a bit, so let's finish up here and take a break. We can go back to group practice next time we have free time. I want to get the performance done before something big happens." Shiro said turning away from the door back to the replicator, "Are you done yet Lance?"

"Ugh, fine, fine. I guess its good enough." Lance grumbled as Pidge started the printing process.

Lance took his as soon as it was finished printing and headed back to his room yelling about beautifying it. Pidge rolled her eyes and started adjusting the settings for Shiro's. Shiro's ended up being simple, with purple edging and the symbol from their flight suits across his chest. Once it was Hunk's turn he set up something a little more elaborate, with a turtle shell pattern at the bottom and a sun pattern over his heart, and the same design Shiro had used on his back.

Pidge and Hunk walked back to their rooms together and had just enough time to put their new clothes away before Allura called them all for a meeting.

It took another month of hushed secret practices for them to reach a point where they were happy enough with their performances to be willing to show them to Allura and Coran. Shiro was the one who set up the performance, telling Allura and Coran that the paladins had prepared a demonstration of several parts of Earth culture that they would like to show. Allura had been intrigued enough to allow it and so their next free day was going to be the performance.

The Alteans watched as the Paladins scurried around a room, which had been originally for practicing shapeshifting, dressed in black outfits that had splashes of their paladin colors on it all barefoot. Lance's outfit was the most intricate, with a blue spiral on the front and a strange curving snowflake on the back. Pidge's had a green band at the top with circuitry patterns extending to the bottom. Keith's was on the simpler side, sleeveless with red edging and red slashes down the sides.

Hunk had found speakers of some sort, so he and Pidge we're attempting to hook them up to the computer. The first time they tried the music, the speakers made an unholy shriek causing them both to scramble and pause the music. They fiddled to turn down the sound and tested it again, seemingly pleased when the music played just a touch too loud. They paused the song and went to get in formation, Pidge front and center, Lance and Hunk flanking and Keith and Shiro diagonally behind them.

"Alright, we're all set up now, so hello! We've been practicing for this so please enjoy, we are starting with what I taught the other paladins. And, ready Shiro?" Pidge turned to look at Shiro who was stationed at the computer to start the music.

"Ready. 3, 2, 1," Shiro counted down and started the music shifting back to his starting position.

The group waited for 8 counts and then bowed, and then they danced. Pidge was the most technically perfect, legs snapping out to the correct position and arms moving exactly in time. Hunk and Lance also had a good grasp, though Lance's extensions seemed to go high and Hunk was flat footed on occasion. Keith and Shiro were the least familiar and it showed, Shiro pausing between steps for half a second and Keith's arms were occasionally wrong for a count before he fixed them. Despite the lack of technical perfection, the whole group seemed to be having fun, the smiles on their faces, the resonating feeling of unity was there, and even Allura and Coran could feel it.

The dance came to an end and the group bowed, Allura and Coran clapped as Shiro went and paused the music. Pidge stepped forward to explain, "So the dance we just did was called the Highland Fling and traditionally comes from the country of Scotland, which is a country to the north on Earth. My family migrated from there a long time ago, so my mom thought it would be a good way to connect to our family's past. The dance was originally used to show off a warrior's prowess by having him dance on the center of his shield which had a large spike, so you weren't supposed to move off the center point."

"That sounds quite painful." Allura remarked as Coran scribbled notes onto a pad about Earthen culture.

"That's why it's not like that anymore. Now it's only really done for competition and reenactment purposes." Pidge replied, "Now it's Hunk's turn."

The paladins rearranged themselves so Hunk was in the center, Lance and Pidge on either side of him and Keith and Shiro behind in the spaces between the trio. Hunk took a step forward to explain, "So next we are doing hula dancing which is a type of dance popular in a region full of islands that my family comes from. I was taught this type of dance with my family. The song we're using is not my favorite pick, but it's what Pidge had so we made do, the song is from a movie set in the state of Hawaii which is part of the island region. Alright Keith, let's go."

Keith darted over to start the music and darted back to his position. The group waited a few counts then sunk down into their knees a bit and brought their hands to their hips. The dance had a lot of swaying of the hips while the hands moved in mesmerizing patterns. Allura jumped slightly the first time they clapped, but settled once she saw it was part of the dance. The dance itself was very smooth and it was obvious the amount of care that went into getting the positions correct. When the dance came to close they chanted the words with the song while holding position before slowly coming back to a normal standing position. Keith darted off to go pause the music again while everyone else let out a breath in unison.

Hunk smiled, "So that was a hula dance to the song He Mele No Lilo. Next up is Lance's. Shiro and I will be sitting this one out" Hunk explained as he came over to sit next to Coran.

Lance bounded to the center, "Well, as Hunk said he and Shiro will be sitting out because I know no choreography that is good for beginners and that's what they are. So, Pidge, Keith, and I will be demonstrating a style of dance called ballet which has three main schools, French, Italian, and Russian, all of which are countries on the continent of Europe in the northern section of Earth. We will be doing a choreography from a show called the Nutcracker. I think we're ready Shiro."

The three started in the back corner of the room, Lance the closest to the center and Pidge in the back. The dance started with the three doing arm movements before starting a series jumps, careful not to hit each other. They did a series of turning jumps over to the other side before doing the same jump sequence from the beginning. There was a level of precision with the jumps that Lance had that the other two didn't quite match, the delicacy of the steps made Lance seem like he was floating. When they reached a part to do pirouettes all three started, Pidge stopped first, holding in fifth position, then Keith about two turns later, holding in the same position. As Lance finished all three dropped down to pose on one knee, an arm extended to their audience.

The rest applauded and Pidge went and grabbed some water pouches that the trio drank while Hunk and Shiro came back to join them. Once he was done Keith took the center to explain, "So, before I joined the Garrison back on Earth, to raise money for my schooling I joined an international k-pop band. K-pop, or Korean pop, is a type of song and dance done by idols in Korea, a country north of the island chains that Hunk was talking about. Pidge was insistent so I taught them all the dance to a song I used to perform with my old group."

The group started in two lines facing the back, Keith going to start the music since Shiro who was closest started moving as the music started. Allura noted that this style of dance was more social and designed for a group. During each segment where there seemed to be someone singing one of the Paladins took that roles but never the same one. Shiro started, then Lance, then Pidge, then Shiro again, and then finally Keith for a few seconds, then back to Lance and finally Hunk took the lead for part of what seemed to be the chorus. Even though the dance didn't seem perfect the beaming smiles told the story of a the group energy. Keith's movements were the most in time with a certain level of intended jerkiness, Lance seemed the most likely to get confused, but since his part seemed to be one of the main vocalists, he could fake it pretty well. The dance ended with all five in a line with their left hand being a thumbs up and large smiles.

Keith stepped forward from his position on the end, "So that's what kpop can look like. And that was Pidge's favorite song so that's why we did that one. So next we're doing Shiro's, but his is tricky-" Hunk snorted at the pun as he stretched some, "Shush. So we decided to show off his and Hunk's other form of dance at the same time. Now one of you come explain I need more water."

Shiro patted Keith on the back as he took the center, "So as Keith said, what I do is harder and takes a whole lot of training. Keith and I have been training in it so we will be representing the sport of tricking, while Hunk, Lance and Pidge will be doing breakdancing. We figured we could mash these together since tricking takes inspiration from breakdancing. Tricking is not dancing exactly, so you should be able to see a distinct difference. Hopefully when we do this we won't have any of the crashes from practice."

"Shiro, at least one of those crashes was your fault."

"Shhhhh. Anyways I think we're ready." Shiro said looking at Keith standing on one side and the other trio standing in their ready positions, "And, go!"

The trio on the right started as Shiro darted back to his starting position behind Keith. The movement was finally smooth and the positioning no longer required awkward adjustments to make space for Keith and Shiro to pass through. The Alteans watched with mild concern as the dance seemed to get progressively harder, Keith and Shiro flying across the ground and in the air, at one point during the third switch Keith being boosted by Shiro and sent flying in a complicated spin over Shiro's head. Hunk's group ended with Hunk doing a complicated spin on the floor and Pidge and Lance doing a less complicated floor trick. Once Keith and Shiro finished their last trick the whole group froze and fell to the ground like marionettes with their strings cut.

They all sat up after laughing from the adrenaline rush. Shiro pushed himself back to a standing position, "So that was tricking and break dancing. We're going to take a short break and then our last part is something you guys can participate in."

Allura looked interested, "Something for us to participate in?"

"Yeah, one of the other things I learned was how to line dance and that's a good type of dance for beginners." Shiro explained as Hunk handed him a water pouch.

"Wait, wait, wait. Before we do that. Allura, can we have doing stuff like this for bonding exercises instead of, you know, some of the ones that makes us risk our lives." Lance interjected from his place on the floor.

"Well you did say this was a show of how humans do bonding exercises, and I see now why you were having problems with the Altean ones. I don't see why we can't do this some of the time. But combat practice stays as is." Allura conceded.

"Of course," Shiro replied as the rest of the Paladins cheered in victory.

"Those exercise are not that hard, why the previous paladins could do it with their eyes closed and an arm tied to their backs!"

"Coran, unlike the last paladins, we're not Alteans, or any other type of alien. We're kinda at a disadvantage. We're also you know, trained to do battle in high tech, lion shaped, war ships that we never knew existed before!"

"That sounds like a problem due to your planet's lack of technology, Lance."

"That's what I just said!"

"Guys!"

Bonus:

After finally corralling all the Paladins and Alteans into two lines, it was time for Shiro to explain how line dancing worked. Shiro clapped his hands together, "Ok, so I'll start explaining after the music starts and everyone else knows how this goes, so just follow what everyone else does. Ready Pidge?"

Pidge was kneeling next to her computer a shit-eating grin on her face, "Ready Shiro!"

The music started and Shiro opened his mouth to start the explanation, but instead blinked and looked down the line at Pidge suspiciously. Lance cheered and said with the song, "This time, we're gonna get funky!"

Shiro sighed, a resigned look on his face. This was not the right song but the others seemed to be enjoying it so he decided it was good enough. During the beginning pause Shiro said, "Just follow the directions in the song, it's easy enough."

When they hit the one hop this time section, everyone except Keith and the Alteans "One!" Keith looked around startled but now the Alteans began joining in when the others started to do random vocalizations.

At the end of the song Allura clapped her hands, "Oh this is a great deal more exciting than the Altean formal dancing. I quite like this. You must show me more."

Shiro smiled, "Will do, Princess. Will do."


End file.
